Ciao, Bellissima

“Signore & Signore” at BAM

The “Signore & Signore” season, running at BAM through July 29, is a song of praise to Italian actresses—not just the international bombshells (Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, and Gina Lollobrigida) but also less explosive beauties, such as Alida Valli and Lucia Bosè. “The Lady Without Camelias” (1953), showing on July 13, stars Bosè as Clara, a young actress who is no sooner discovered than she is fenced in and humiliated, with a new husband who cannot tolerate her romantic scenes; he prefers her to play Joan of Arc, with disastrous results. The director is Michelangelo Antonioni, who had already worked with the rapturous Bosè on “Chronicle of a Love Affair” and who offered her the part of Clara after Lollobrigida (and, it is said, Loren) had turned it down. Compared to later Antonioni, the film feels crowded, yet the prowl of his camera is already afoot, and one shot of a car rolling through a fog-dampened evening, with a sign saying “CINEMA” the only illumination, seems to presage and condense his whole career. ♦